Superstitious President-elect Donald Trump dumps Governor Chris Christie as head of transition effort

Washington: US President -elect Donald Trump replaced top aide Chris Christie as the head of his transition team in favour of Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, as he scrambled to assemble a government after his surprise win.

Christie had been in charge of the transition for the last several months, but the surprise nature of Trump's victory made it critical to move more quickly to assemble a team, the transition team said on Friday.

Christie's standing had been in question in recent weeks as two of his former aides were convicted in the scandal involving the political motivation behind closure of the George Washington Bridge at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 2013.

The president-elect told advisers he wanted to tap Pence's Washington experience and contacts to help move the process along, according to people familiar with the discussions. An executive committee, which will include members of Congress, will advise Pence as the process moves forward.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have made their views on abortion very clear.Credit: AP

Over the northern summer, Trump collected a few practiced Washington hands to help him design an administration, including veterans of the first Bush administration and Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Among them were Jamie Burke and William Hagerty, both former Romney advisers, and Ado Machida, a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.

But Trump remained preoccupied almost exclusively with the campaign and refused to discuss the transition with his aides out of superstition, according to two people briefed on the process.

He took few steps to recruit a conventional team of Washington veterans who might accompany him into government, after the fashion of past candidates like George W. Bush, who assembled something of a national security shadow Cabinet before the 2000 general election.

Centre, from left: Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie are likely to named in Trump's cabinet. Credit: Bloomberg

The transition team was treated as something of a backwater. Trump appeared to care little about it, and the adviser who was most involved with it, Paul Manafort, left the campaign in August.

"We'll figure it out on election night," a superstitious Mr Trump reportedly told pleading aides, according the Telegraph, London.

House Speaker Paul Ryan with Donald Trump, his wife Melania and Vice president-elect Mike Pence.Credit: AP

But Trump held a few meetings on Wednesday to spur that process, huddling with a group that included his children; Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Stephen Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News Network, who helped steer Trump's campaign. Trump met separately with a group of aides to Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, his running mate, along with Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Michael Leavitt, a former governor of Utah who managed Romney's transition team, said Trump's transition would probably focus at first on a few key appointments, like naming a White House chief of staff.

Donald Trump's running mate Mike Pence is staunchly anti-choice. Credit: John Locher

Leavitt said he met several times with Trump's team to discuss the mechanics of transition planning and described it as a "full-blown" operation.

"There are whole series of things that have to happen: getting a team on the field, beginning to lay out the how-to of the commitments the president-elect has made," Leavitt said. "Right now, they're going to be focused mostly on personnel and logistics."

Yet the transition aides in Washington were given a limited mandate for mapping out an administration, people briefed on their efforts said. They were asked to line up potential candidates for Cabinet-level offices, but not to fill out full staff rosters for federal departments and agencies, one person said.

The appointment of Pence makes Christie, along with Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who has been a top campaign supporter, will serve as vice chairs of the transition, the sources said.

The transition team is adding 12 members, including a Republican donor, Rebekah Mercer; Bannon; Priebus; Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal; Republican lawmaker Marsha Blackburn, and three of Trump's adult children and Kushner.

Trump's administration is being assembled behind the scenes. But like much else in the nation's capital, little stays secret for long.

The list of names being mentioned as possibilities for crucial posts in Trump's Cabinet is growing by the hour, giving official Washington what it craves most: a never-ending parlour game as speculation grows about who might actually get the nod.

A big revelation may come soon, according to Trump himself, who took to Twitter on Friday morning with some news. "Busy day planned in New York," the president-elect said. "Will soon be making some very important decisions on the people who will be running our government."

One thing is clear already: Those helping Trump make the decisions are the members of his campaign's inner circle. At Trump Tower on Friday morning, the president-elect's closest aides arrived, one by one, waving to journalists as they entered elevators to Trump's offices.

Those included David Bossie, the deputy campaign manager; Bannon, and Hope Hicks, the campaign spokeswoman. Giuliani arrived just before 10am, a few minutes after Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager. Brad Parscale, the campaign's digital director, also headed up to the top floors.

The latest name to be swept into the speculation maelstrom is Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. He is said to be a candidate for secretary of the Treasury, according to a report by CNBC, although the banker - who was close to President Barack Obama - has repeatedly denied being interested in the job.

And the speculation could be short-lived. In 2014, Trump mocked Dimon during an interview with his biographer, Michael D'Antonio. Trump dismissed Dimon, a fellow New Yorker, as being too willing to settle lawsuits - something the President-elect proudly declares he never does.

"I watch this guy, Jamie Dimon, settle every case," Trump told D'Antonio, according to transcripts of the interview obtained by The New York Times. When D'Antonio notes that Trump seems "bugged by that," Trump responds that he is.

"I can't believe he does it," Trump says. "I can't believe he gives away billions of dollars. He gets sued. I'm dying to sue him so he gives me a billion dollars."

Whether that exchange suggests that Trump would not offer the Treasury job to Dimon is unclear. Aides to Trump have declined to confirm who is on the shortlist for Cabinet posts. And despite the president-elect's return to Twitter on Thursday night, he has so far said nothing specific about his possible picks.

For now, Trump is firmly ensconced in Trump Tower, where he returned after his whirlwind day at the White House and Capitol Hill on Thursday.

The building has been transformed into a kind of fortress by the Secret Service and the local police. It has now been ringed by Jersey barriers and concrete blocks marked with "NYPD." The Secret Service has set up checkpoints on each end of 56th Street near the tower, and pedestrian access has been restricted around the building.

At the Pentagon and the State Department, officials of the Obama administration said on Thursday that they had not yet heard from Trump's transition team about beginning the complex work of transferring responsibilities and authority. A spokesman for the State Department said he did not have "any firm word" on when briefings might begin for designated officials from the new government.

New York Times; Telegraph, London